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Big Bang Bar
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BigBangJoe
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 134
Location: Gent, Belgium
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 Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 2:18 pm Post subject: Story on pinballnews |
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FYI
Martin of pinballnews.com has asked me to write a story about the arrival of BBB, so he could post *something* on his website. After all, what is a pinball-news-site, without any article on the arrival of BBB?
I have sent him my story, but I triple checked that nothing was revealed that wasn't already well known on RGP.
Later on, he will visit me to have a thorough look at my machine and write a full review on it. Kim has asked me to hold that off until all of your games are finished. I respect that request, so Martin will have to wait a few more months, before he can access my machine.
Joe |
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unigroove
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 118
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| Posted: Sun Jul 23, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject: |
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I remember having some pretty long emails going back and forward with Martin regarding his Big bang Barrel story. This story was 90% bogus and speculation, for which he refused to rectify since all arguments I mailed him were off the record info. At that time I was in Bloomington and his story made everyone wonder where he gots his vivid imagination from. He was complaining that no parts were send to the UK because of the BBB project, bla bla bla. Obviously there were other reasons, just as Martin had reasons to keep the story online. I have no doubt his 'source' wanted that story out pretty bad...
I send him an email in which I offered him to explain the whole EU delivery story, as I knew the games were coming and spoke with most BBB owners regdarding the "keep it silent" request. So far, no reply from Martin. It makes me wonder why he is always on top of the latest stern and every fart from Australia, but regading BBB he already afforts himself 2 weeks to mention the delivery of the games on his site...
Sorry to say but I can't really call his site objective in the news he brings...
@Joe: As I already noticed how written requests get misinterpreted, and stories of the arrival of the game found on the net contain incorrect information, so please make sure your story is correct and don't get into details you don't know enough about. I was surprised to see others BBB owners completely misunderstand the reason why they should be quiet about the arrival, and post untrue reasons on the net, while the reason was explained end there really was no way that could be misunderstandood... |
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atlfun
Joined: 03 Aug 2005
Posts: 16
Location: Atlanta, GA
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| Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 7:00 am Post subject: |
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I am with Unigroove on this one. I remember emailing him about the negative story he ran claiming that BBB production was being halted. I told him to run such stories without naming sources is no better than the SUN/Enquirer stories.
He just emailed back about how his soruces were in the know. Well, I geuss they didn't know too much. 
I wonder where his apology is? I would not go out of my way for that guy at all.
Brian |
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unigroove
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 118
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| Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:28 am Post subject: |
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| speaking of apologies: I haven't seen any public apologies to Gene yet, while plenty of RGP posters do owe him that due to their negative attitude towards the succeeding of the project. |
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awarner
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 558
Location: Atlanta, GA
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| Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 9:16 am Post subject: |
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I talked to one of the bigger "Negative Posters" about it and he said he would be doing it, but might wait until US games ship. I loved how a few people still had to come up with a way to make negative posts out of this though. Like " Making 5 is not like making 175" and stuff like that. One of the negative posters said that the real problem was getting all of the parts and now that that has been proven, they believed that they were wrong. We all believed in this, project. I'm sure more than a few of us have been worried at times (the second payment thing was my biggest issue), but here we are at the home stretch. Although a little more disconnected from the status information than we prolly felt we would like to be, we have had a reasonable flow from time to time. I know that if I ordered a car from Chevrolet I would have less information about it's build.
_________________
Pins and Vids #4 - A New Hoax DVD, Available NOW at www.pinsandvids.com for only $12.00 plus shipping. |
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BigBangJoe
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 134
Location: Gent, Belgium
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| Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:30 pm Post subject: |
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| unigroove wrote: | Sorry to say but I can't really call his site objective in the news he brings...
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Oh, so that's why you put Dutch translations of his articles in your magazine? 
You have to admit that his articles are well written. Sure, it's just the opinion of one man, and sure he can get it wrong sometimes, but I still consider his site the best pinball news site there is.
Unless someone knows any other good sites? I especially like his comprehensive reviews. Most reviews on other sites are just a few lines of "this game's sooo great".
By the way, I'm still looking for a *good* sample of the audio of a Stern LOTR (or later). I mean the modified Whitestar audio board. And I don't mean a crude sample recorded by a tiny microphone.
If anyone could send me *any* clip, I would be very grateful.
Any news on emulating that sound board, Sellenoff? 
And what about the audiocapabilities of the latest Stern system: can anyone tell me how big the difference is compared to the old pre-LOTR whitestar system? And how does it compare to DCS? I wish it was easier to play these latest games here in Belgium, so I could check it out myself  |
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sellenoff
Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Posts: 101
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| Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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I emulated the Whitestar sound system 2 over a year ago (covers games from LOTR up to Nascar). The issue is that current computers still can't run fast enough to really get a clean sound, although some have claimed they can recently. If you record music out of it, the music is pretty darned accurate though.
| BigBangJoe wrote: | | unigroove wrote: | Sorry to say but I can't really call his site objective in the news he brings...
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Oh, so that's why you put Dutch translations of his articles in your magazine?
You have to admit that his articles are well written. Sure, it's just the opinion of one man, and sure he can get it wrong sometimes, but I still consider his site the best pinball news site there is.
Unless someone knows any other good sites? I especially like his comprehensive reviews. Most reviews on other sites are just a few lines of "this game's sooo great".
By the way, I'm still looking for a *good* sample of the audio of a Stern LOTR (or later). I mean the modified Whitestar audio board. And I don't mean a crude sample recorded by a tiny microphone.
If anyone could send me *any* clip, I would be very grateful.
Any news on emulating that sound board, Sellenoff?
And what about the audiocapabilities of the latest Stern system: can anyone tell me how big the difference is compared to the old pre-LOTR whitestar system? And how does it compare to DCS? I wish it was easier to play these latest games here in Belgium, so I could check it out myself |
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unigroove
Joined: 08 Aug 2005
Posts: 118
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| Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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For all others reading this conversation: I recently became chief editor of the Spinner Magazine which is the magazine of the Dutch Pinball Association. In that magazine translated articles from pinballnews are featured. As those articles were part of the magazine long before I became chief editor, what does that have to do with me?
I'm not going to repeat myself again regarding Martin. I suggest you contact IPB about your article and have it checked by someone who knows more details than you before its gets put online. If you are looking for another website to host your (approed) story: how about pinside.com? I just dont see why Martin should get an exclusive as a thank you for causing a lot of commotion.
Regarding Stern: As I am an audio engineer, let me tell you that what is not in the game, you can't get out of it. Stern used 8bit audio samples, sampled at only 8kHz, or something like that. basically everything above 11kHz is cut off in order to save memory in the roms. Also lots of bass was cut. That explains why Stern games sound like crap and even on he best audio system they still will sound like crap because you can't bring back the frequencies that are missing. On WPT I noticed some improvement, but still the sound of Stern games has a long way to go. I'm pretty sure LOTR sounds extremely crappy compared to BBB  |
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BigBangJoe
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 134
Location: Gent, Belgium
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| Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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| unigroove wrote: | As those articles were part of the magazine long before I became chief editor, what does that have to do with me?
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Well, you say his articles are not objective, and at the same time two of them appear in the very latest "Spinner" magazine of which you are chief editor, so I'm just stating facts. Besides, I put an appropriate smiley in my comment, so lighten up.
| unigroove wrote: | how about pinside.com?
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They don't have reviews. All I can find are previews and small user reviews who repeat the same thing over and over again. I want more than just a scoring system, I want long and well written articles.
| unigroove wrote: | | Regarding Stern: Stern used 8bit audio samples, sampled at only 8kHz, or something like that. |
That's the old Whitestar system, and that's indeed rubbish. The modified system and what's inside WPT is 16-bit (if I understand correctly), and could theoretically sound a lot better. |
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sellenoff
Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Posts: 101
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| Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 11:12 pm Post subject: Lots of audio info |
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I posted this back in the old forum, and then on the VPFORUMS for everyone to enjoy.. I think you both would enjoy reading it, based on this conversation.
http://www.vpforums.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34698&highlight=hardware+capabilities
PS - My own opinions of best sounding audio is:
#1) Pinball 2000 - DCS 2 (nothing beats it yet in my opinion)
#2) Capcom - MPEG 2 (not a bad second to #1)
#3) WMS 90's era - DCS 1
#4) LOTR Stern Sound - 16bit
#5) WMS late 80's - early 90's - YM2151 and such
#6) DE/Sega/Stern (prior to LOTR) - 8bit sound
However, quality does not always mean the favorite/best sound package & music. The sound on Black Knight 2000 is still some of the best ever - and that was all 8 bit (crappy as you say) sound.. 
BBB though, has the best sound package by leaps and bounds over all the other Capcom games.. I was sorely disappointed when I heard the other games ( I heard BBB first by manually loading the samples ). |
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pinsane
Joined: 05 Aug 2005
Posts: 61
Location: Orange County, CA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:15 am Post subject: |
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| unigroove wrote: | | Stern used 8bit audio samples, sampled at only 8kHz, or something like that. basically everything above 11kHz is cut off in order to save memory in the roms. |
Nyquist might disagree...
;0)
steve SDTM
PS. A while back I ran the BBB audio through a spectrum analyzer and was surprised and disappointed to discover that the BBB soundtrack is shelf filtered at 11Khz (same as DCS unfortunately). You can definitely tell the difference (for both BBB & DCS games) if you compare the original AIFF files vs. the compressed finals. |
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BigBangJoe
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 134
Location: Gent, Belgium
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| Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 3:48 am Post subject: |
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| pinsane wrote: | | compare the original AIFF files vs. the compressed finals. |
Huh? The original AIFF files?? Are these available somewhere???
Gimme gimme gimme!  |
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BigBangJoe
Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 134
Location: Gent, Belgium
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| Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 4:00 am Post subject: Re: Lots of audio info |
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| sellenoff wrote: | | However, quality does not always mean the favorite/best sound package & music. The sound on Black Knight 2000 is still some of the best ever - and that was all 8 bit (crappy as you say) sound.. |
Right, it's the composer/musician who is responsible for the subjective quality. If you take the music of Sterns Playboy when you can enter your initials, and you run it through a million dollar synthesizer, it will still sound crap. I think the music on TAF is the best example of what a good musician can achieve with a simple FM synthesizer.
| sellenoff wrote: | | BBB though, has the best sound package by leaps and bounds over all the other Capcom games.. I was sorely disappointed when I heard the other games ( I heard BBB first by manually loading the samples ). |
I do like the sound/music of Airborne, because it fits the airshow/airplane theme perfectly. "Ya got yer seatbelt on honey?" 
I even had a visitor once (who knew nothing about pinball or BBB) who prefered Airborne over BBB. And a *lot* of people quickly switch to TAF after a few games. Well, I don't mind, because they don't wear out my BBB then 
BBB's sound is indeed the best. My wife complained a few days ago because people could hear the tube dancer from outside our house. "What will people think?"  |
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pinsane
Joined: 05 Aug 2005
Posts: 61
Location: Orange County, CA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 8:09 am Post subject: |
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| BigBangJoe wrote: | | pinsane wrote: | | compare the original AIFF files vs. the compressed finals. |
Huh? The original AIFF files?? Are these available somewhere???
Gimme gimme gimme! |
For some of the later DCS games you can go to the old Williams site (now the Pinball Factory site) and there are sound samples for the games which include full bandwidth AIFF files. There is an obvious difference in sound quality between the sounds in the games and the sounds in the AIFF files.
For BBB, you can listen to the end credits music on last year's TGOM christmas DVD. Korn is a good friend of mine, and he answered most of the audio Trivia questions correctly in a private email (he had been lurking on the old Bearcave forum) so I sent him a copy of Jeff's demo reel for BBB. Jeff gave him permission at Expo to put the music on the Christmas DVD.
I measured the 11Khz filtering for both BBB and DCS games a while back when I was messing with equalization, dynamic range expansion, and stereo synthesis hardware in an attempt to get the best quality sound out of a pinball machine. My (incorrect) assumption was that the bandwidth of the audio signal was being limited by the anti-aliasing filters on the game, which of course are really cheap and thus roll off the signal well before the Nyquist limit (unfortunately still in the audible range at 15.625Khz for DCS but better than the 12Khz cutoff of the filters). The plan was to use the same trick that is used in CD players, which is to oversample and then use a gentle anti-aliasing filter well out of the audio range. Unfortunately after a lot of experimentation, I finally pumped the unfiltered audio into a spectrum analyzer and discovered that the SOUND IS BANDWIDTH LIMITED ON THE ROMs!  You can improve it with equalization and other techniques, but the high frequency information is lost.
One of my many whacky "to-do-in-the future" dream projects is to make a full bandwidth, uncompressed version of the BBB soundboard because I really love that soundtrack. But that is a huge project and a long way off.
steve SDTM |
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sellenoff
Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Posts: 101
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| Posted: Wed Jul 26, 2006 10:37 am Post subject: |
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Cool post pinsane I didn't realize this. So basically you are saying they filter out above that range, compress (dcs based or mpeg ie wms or capcom), and play it back that way, in other words, there's no loss of audio frequency range due to the nature of the compression?
| pinsane wrote: | | BigBangJoe wrote: | | pinsane wrote: | | compare the original AIFF files vs. the compressed finals. |
Huh? The original AIFF files?? Are these available somewhere???
Gimme gimme gimme! |
For some of the later DCS games you can go to the old Williams site (now the Pinball Factory site) and there are sound samples for the games which include full bandwidth AIFF files. There is an obvious difference in sound quality between the sounds in the games and the sounds in the AIFF files.
For BBB, you can listen to the end credits music on last year's TGOM christmas DVD. Korn is a good friend of mine, and he answered most of the audio Trivia questions correctly in a private email (he had been lurking on the old Bearcave forum) so I sent him a copy of Jeff's demo reel for BBB. Jeff gave him permission at Expo to put the music on the Christmas DVD.
I measured the 11Khz filtering for both BBB and DCS games a while back when I was messing with equalization, dynamic range expansion, and stereo synthesis hardware in an attempt to get the best quality sound out of a pinball machine. My (incorrect) assumption was that the bandwidth of the audio signal was being limited by the anti-aliasing filters on the game, which of course are really cheap and thus roll off the signal well before the Nyquist limit (unfortunately still in the audible range at 15.625Khz for DCS but better than the 12Khz cutoff of the filters). The plan was to use the same trick that is used in CD players, which is to oversample and then use a gentle anti-aliasing filter well out of the audio range. Unfortunately after a lot of experimentation, I finally pumped the unfiltered audio into a spectrum analyzer and discovered that the SOUND IS BANDWIDTH LIMITED ON THE ROMs! You can improve it with equalization and other techniques, but the high frequency information is lost.
One of my many whacky "to-do-in-the future" dream projects is to make a full bandwidth, uncompressed version of the BBB soundboard because I really love that soundtrack. But that is a huge project and a long way off.
steve SDTM |
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